Scores of prolife groups are calling for a public boycott of food giant, PepsiCo, due to its partnership with Senomyx, a biotech company that uses aborted fetal cells in the research and development of artificial flavor enhancers.

Pro-life watchdog group, Children of God for Life (CGL), is now joined by major pro-life organizations calling upon the public to target PepsiCo in a boycott.

Pepsi is funding the research and development, and paying royalties to Senomyx, which uses HEK-293 (human embryonic kidney cells) to produce flavor enhancers for Pepsi beverages.

“Using isolated human taste receptors we created proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems that provide a biochemical or electronic readout when a flavor ingredient interacts with the receptor,” says the Senomyx website.

“What they do not tell the public is that they are using HEK 293 – human embryonic kidney cells taken from an electively aborted baby to produce those receptors,” stated Debi Vinnedge, President for CGL, the watch dog group that has been monitoring the use of aborted fetal material in medical products and cosmetics for years.

The aborted fetal cells are not in the product itself. However, “there are many options PepsiCo could be using instead of aborted fetal cells,” noted Vinnedge.

The revelation about Senomyx’s research techniques motivated Campbell Soup to sever all relations with Senomyx.

However, PepsiCo continues their business relationship despite the abortion connection. They drew pubic ire earlier this year when they responded, saying, “our collaboration with Senomyx is strictly limited to creating lower-calorie, great-tasting beverages for consumers.”

When pressed further, PepsiCo sent out a form letter response saying they had been accused of conducting aborted fetal tissue research.

Bradley Mattes, executive director of Life Issues Institute, said, “While aborted fetal cells aren’t actually in the product itself, the close relationship is enough to repulse most consumers. To our knowledge, this is the first time a food product has been publicly associated with abortion.”

The pro-life groups noted that additional companies collaborating with Senomyx will be targeted for boycott next.

The pro-life organizations are asking the public to boycott all Pepsi drink products and encourage consumers to contact Pepsi management requesting that they sever all ties with Senomyx.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Thursday, August 4, 2011

David Livingstone – A Three Thousand Year History August 2, 2011

The U.S. Department of Defense has released translations of a number of Iraqi intelligence documents dating from Saddam’s rule. One, a General Military Intelligence Directorate report from September 2002, entitled “The Emergence of Wahhabism and its Historical Roots”, shows the Iraqi government was aware of the nefarious purposes of the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, often known as Salafis, in serving Western interests to undermine Islam.

The report relies heavily on the Memoirs of Mr. Hempher, which describe in detail how a British spy to the Middle East, in the middle of the eighteenth century, made contact with Adbul Wahhab, to create a subversive version of Islam, the notorious sect of Wahhabism, which became the founding cult of the Saudi regime. The movement was temporarily suppressed by the Ottomam armies in the middle of the nineteenth century. But with the assistance of the British, the Wahhabis and their Saudi sponsors returned to power and founded their own state in 1932. Since then, the Saudis have collaborated closely with the Americans, to whom they owe their tremendous oil wealth, in funding various Islamic fundamentalist organizations and other American covert operations, particularly the “jihad” in Afghanistan. But the Saudis simulatenously use the immense wealth at their dispossal to disseminate this disruptive brand of Islam to various parts of the world, categorized by some of the largest propaganda campaign in history.

Many who defend Wahhabism as a legitimate reform movement of Islam have tried to dismiss the Memoirs as a spurious fabrication. These include Bernard Haykel, Professor in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, who, without providing any evidence, presumes the Memoirs to have been created by Ayyub Sabri Pasha.

However, while the Memoirs only emerged in the 1970s, Pasha wrote his version of the story already in 1888. Ayyub Sabri Pasha was a well-known Ottoman writer and Turkish naval admiral, who served the Ottoman army in the Arabian Pensinsula, writing several works about the region and it’s history. Including The Beginning and Spreading of Wahhabism, where he recounts Abdul Wahhab’s association and plotting with Hempher.

In addition to that revealed in the Hempher Memoirs, the Iraqi intelligence report also makes known some surprising claims, derived from works circulated in Arabic which have not been translated into English. As the report recounts, both Abdul Wahhab, and his sponsor, ibn Saud, who founded the Saudi dynasty, were of Jewish origin.

For example, D. Mustafa Turan wrote, in The Donmeh Jews, that Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab was a descendant of a family of Donmeh Jews from Turkey. The Donmeh were descendants of followers of the infamous false-messiah of Judaism, Shabbetai Zevi, who shocked the Jewish world in 1666 by converting to Islam. Viewing it as a sacred mystery, Zevi’s followers imitated his conversion to Islam, though secretly keeping to their Kabbalistic doctrines. In Europe, the Shabbeteans were eventually led a century later by Jacob Frank, claiming to be a reincarnation of Zevi. And, according to Rabbi Antelman inTo Eliminate the Opiate, to them belonged the Rothschilds who had a hand in the founding of the Bavarian Illuminati. The Donmeh community of Turkey were concentrated in the city of Salonika, which became a hotbed of Masonic activity, and from which the Young Turk movement evolved, which aided in the collapse of the Muslim empire of the Ottoman Turks. There is evidence that Ataturk himself, the founder of the modern Turkish state, was of Donmeh origin as well.

Turan maintains that Abdul Wahhab’s grandfather, Sulayman was actually Shulman, having belonged to the Jewish community of Bursa in Turkey. From there he settled in Damascus, where he feigned Islam, but was apparently expelled for practicing sorcery. He then fled to Egypt and he again faced condemnation, so made his way he to the Hijaz, where he got married and fathered Abdul Wahhab. According to the report, the same is claimed in The Donmeh Jews and the Origin of the Saudi Wahabis, Rifat Salim Kabar.

The notion of the Saudi family being of Jewish heritage has been published byMohammad Sakher, who, it is claimed, was ordered killed by the regime for his revelations. The report relates a similar account, but from different sources. AccordingThe Wahabi Movement/The Truth and Roots, by Abdul Wahhab Ibrahim Al-Shammari, for example, ibn Saud is actually descended from Mordechai bin Ibrahim bin Mushi, a Jewish merchant from Basra. Apparently, when he was approached by members from the Arabian tribe of Aniza, then claimed to be one of them, and traveled with them to Najd and his name became Markhan bin Ibrahim bin Musa.

Additionally, Abdul Wahhab was descended from Wahib Al-Tamimi, so, as reported by al Said Nasir, in The History of the Saud Family, the Saudi ambassador in Cairo, Abdullah bin Ibrahim al Mufaddal, paid Muhammad Al-Tamimi thirty five thousand Jinee in the year 1943, to forge a family tree of the Saudi family and that of Abdul Wahhab, and merge them into one, claiming their origin from the Prophet Mohammed.

While it would be difficult to independantly authenticate these claims, they are interesting in light of the role that the state of Saudi Arabia has and continues to play with regards to supporting and advancing Western power in the Middle East and elsewhere. Especially astounding is the very dubious and virulent form of Islam, that Wahhabism and Salafism represent, which is currently wrecking havoc on Islamic traditions, and dividing the Muslim community in petty squabbles over trivial details, allowing the War on Islam to proceed effectively unchecked

Monday, August 1, 2011

<span style="font-weight:bold;">Gaddafi Is Stronger Than Ever In Libya - The Fact Gaddafi Has Survived The Rebellions And Nato Bombing Undermines The Simplistic View Of A Hated Tyrant Clinging On - By Richard Seymour (1/8/11) Richard Seymour Sunday, 31 July 2011 22:04

The Guardian, UK

The war on Libya has not gone well. Kim Sengupta's report on Wednesday detailed this starkly:

"Fresh diplomatic efforts are under way to try to end Libya's bloody civil war, with the UN special envoy flying to Tripoli to hold talks after Britain followed France in accepting that Muammar Gaddafi cannot be bombed into exile.

The change of stance by the two most active countries in the international coalition is an acceptance of realities on the ground. Despite more than four months of sustained air strikes by Nato, the rebels have failed to secure any military advantage. Colonel Gaddafi has survived what observers perceive as attempts to eliminate him and, despite the defection of a number of senior commanders, there is no sign that he will be dethroned in a palace coup.

The regime controls around 20% more territory than it did in the immediate aftermath of the uprising on 17 February."

If the Gaddafi regime is now more in control of Libya than before, then this completely undermines the simplistic view put about by the supporters of war – and unfortunately by some elements of the resistance – that the situation was simply one of a hated tyrant hanging on through mercenary violence. Of course, he uses whatever resources he has at his disposal, but a) it would seem that the involvement of imperialism has driven some Libyans back into the Gaddafi camp, as it's unlikely he would maintain control without some degree of support, and b) we know that rebellious sectors started to go back to Gaddafi within mere weeks of the revolt taking off, meaning in part that his resources of legitimising his regime were not exhausted even before the US-led intervention. Despite the defections, he has consolidated his regime in a way that would have seemed improbable in the early weeks of revolt.

It's important to bear in mind what this means. Both Ben Ali and Mubarak had the support of the US and its major allies – especially Mubarak. They had considerable resources for repression, and there was financial aid being channelled to them, talks aimed at offering reforms to the opposition … and in the end they proved too brittle, too narrowly based, to stay in power.

The state apparatus began to fragment and decompose. The protests kept spreading, and withstood the bloodshed. Nothing they could offer or threaten was sufficient. Gaddafi, on the other hand, has hung on in the face of not only a lack of support from his former imperialist allies, but active political, diplomatic and military opposition. That he did so to a considerable extent through sheer military superiority doesn't mean that the regime hasn't a real social basis.

Perhaps as important has been the weaknesses of the rebellion. I argued that the chief problem facing the revolt was that it had taken off before any civil society infrastructure had been built up to sustain the opposition. This meant that unrepresentative former regime elements were well placed to step into the fray and take effective control. As a result of the defeats they faced, those arguing for an alliance with Nato grew stronger and gained more control. There's no question that if Nato really wanted to, they could defeat Gaddafi. It would, however, require a level of commitment (serious ground forces) that they aren't ready to use. I think this is because, far from this being a pre-planned wave of expansionism by the US, the decision to launch an aerial assault constituted a desperate act of crisis management, which the "realists" in the administration were never particularly happy with. Only the zealots of "humanitarian intervention" could seriously have contemplated the kind of protracted, bloody land war in Libya that would have been necessary to win. So, the bet on an alliance with Nato now appears to have been doomed from the start, even on its own terms – even if the best outcome sought was nothing more than a slightly more liberal regime incorporated into the imperialist camp.

Now, what can Libya expect? The leading war powers are once more bruiting negotiations, but to what end? Gaddafi may be persuaded to abandon direct control, in which case the result will most likely be a moderately reformed continuity regime, with ties to European and US capital fully restored.

There appears to be little prospect of his going into exile. But that's not all. The Transitional Council led by former regime elements continues to state that it is the only legitimate authority in Libya. It has been internationally recognised as such by a number of crucial powers. But this is pure cynicism. The imperialist powers know that the Transitional Council can't control all of Libya. They're certainly not taking any steps now to give them the military means to do so. So this means that the tendencies toward partition are sharpened.

There are signs of such a resolution being offered as a "temporary" measure to secure the peace and allow some process of national reconciliation to take place (note that this conflict has increasingly been described as a civil war). This would be economically disabling for all of Libya, including those territories controlled by the rebels. It would also be dangerous in ways that I hope I don't need to spell out.

The final justification for this debacle will be that speedy intervention, however half-hearted, prevented a massacre. Now, there may once have been reason to believe this. But there no longer is.

Gaddafi has enough blood on his hands, and deserved to fall to the insurgents, but there's no reason to submit to war propaganda. In reality, as Amnesty put it, "there is no proof of mass killing of civilians on the scale of Syria or Yemen". Which is an interesting way of putting it. It's no secret that the coalition that was supposedly preventing a genocidal bloodbath in Libya was actually behind much of the bloodshed in Yemen. This completely demolishes the last leg of the moral case for war. The "humanitarian interventions" of the 1990s left the US in a stronger position, both geopolitically and ideologically. I'm not convinced that this will be the result of the bombing of Libya. In fact, if there was any idea that the US could offer an alternative model of development for the populations of the Middle East, it now lies in ruins. It is more than unfortunate that Libya had to be reduced to ruins for this to become apparent.